Given strong current, surge or wave action, sunlight and regular grazing, or harvest,
algal turfs can be highly efficient at capturing solar energy.
Most individual cells of algal turfs are photosynthetic;
however, the high level of efficiency of algal turfs is also
partly the result of mixing: flowing water, forced
against cells by surge, greatly increases chemical
exchange. Photosynthesis in most higher plant and
planktonic algal cells is biochemically inhibited in
full sunlight, especially at high temperatures. Algal
turfs in ATS systems are not photo or temperature
inhibited.

Because of the back and forth swashing of
filaments in wave surge, individual cells in an ATS receive flashing light and no cells
are fully shaded by others. The typical
problem of terrestrial plants: water loss,
stomata closure and CO2 cut off does not
occur. As measured by oxygen release,
there is no inhibition in ATS even in full
tropical summer sun at mid day. A very
high proportion of light energy captured is
transferred to chemical storage as
added biomass.

Recent research published in the Journal of Phycology (2013) shows that the manipulation of the screen substrate can significantly improve both water purification performance and biomass production.

Fig. 2
This diagram shows the significant improvement in ATS performance obtained by using a more complex basal screen (3-D) as compared to the standard 2-D screen. It also shows that both temperature and light are important elements of ATS performance.